Inspiring ideas are rarely incrementalPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Were back!Issue #254: Severance, subtweets, and sauceBy Harris SockelA few years ago, I was on a team at Medium that had a pretty big goal: completely rebuild our onboarding experience. For context, onboarding is a pretty critical piece of Medium (and most consumer apps): Its the moment when you select topics youre interested in after creating an account. We use those selections to select story recommendations.I vividly remember our team gathering around a designers laptop, peering over his shoulder as he demo-ed a mock-up of an animated card-sorting system, wherein brand new users would swipe through a few sample stories, Tinder-style, on various topics. Our algorithm would use those swipes to design a personalized feed.This was 1000% different from what we had at the time (a list of topics to choose from). We didnt end up shipping the swipes, but the design process symbolized something important to me: Inspiring ideas are rarely incremental.Last week, I came across a story by engineering VP Arjun Shah that expands on this idea. Shah questions established tech industry wisdom around minimum viable products, the idea that releasing a rudimentary prototype is better than sinking time into a fully realized experience that may never pay off. The most vibrant success stories, he argues, come from teams thinking in maximums asking themselves Whats the biggest impact we could have? rather than Whats the smallest thing we could ship by the end of Q1? Shah lists a few examples, like Dropboxs obsession with flawless syncing across devices (which took them over a year to build they spent the time because they knew it would set them apart) or Notions founders sequestering themselves in Kyoto to rebuild their first failed app from the ground-up (this also took a year, and put them on a path to a $10 billion valuation).He includes an important caveat: Incremental improvements definitely have their place in successful teams. Small tweaks make up the majority of our day-to-day work. But, at the extreme, he believes, MVP-type thinking can end up fetishizing half-finished work, encouraging builders to show something anything instead of grappling with deeper engineering or a fundamental understanding of problems.Its a contrarian take, but I thought it was worth sharing because it made me think. Im curious: What were some of the most effective teams youve ever been part of, and what were they aiming to do? A smattering of linksFor all Severance-heads reading this: I rediscovered an ode to American office parks, written by a former IBM design researcher. She traces the history of these giant isolated office spaces back to the 1950s, when CEOs realized horizontal architecture immersed in a park-like buffer lent big business a sheen of wholesome goodness. (Caroline Sinders)For etymology nerds, heres a list of 36 anachronisms (old words that have taken on new meanings): dial, footage, and subtweet. (English In Progress)A list of mistakes most of us make in difficult conversations, written by an executive whos fired her fair share of employees. Mistake #1: dropping hints instead of saying the thing. (She once spent 45 minutes building up to firing someone by which point the person thought they were getting a promotion.) (Kara Stern)From the archive: sins of the Average American Mom. (Caroline Beaulieu)I am weirdly pumped for these stamps. Goodnight, Mail. (Jason Kottke) Your daily dose of practical wisdomWhere does that je ne sais quoi that makes a dish memorable come from? A deft mix of sweet and savory. Miso in caramel. Soy sauce in chocolate. Redcurrant jelly in sauces and stews. The key is not to use salt or sugar, but to deploy salty or sweet condiments that contain nuance.

Soviet soldiers lead liberated prisoners out of Auschwitz in the winter of 1945. Public domain via Wikimedia CommonsWhen the Red Army liberated the Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 27, 1945, the soldiers encountered unimaginable horrors, including mass graves, the smoldering remains of gas chambers and prisoners starving to death.Liberating camps wasnt a specific objective of Allied troops. However, Soviet, American, British and Canadian soldiers found themselves freeing thousands of prisoners as they moved across Europe toward the end of World War II. This included Auschwitz, located in southern Poland. A complex of more than 40 subcamps, it was the largest of all the Nazi camps.Concentration camps and extermination centers were part of the Nazi Final Solution, a plan for the genocide of anyone its leaders defined as Jewish. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Nazis and their Allies established more than 44,000 camps and other incarceration sites throughout German-occupied Europe between 1933 and 1945.Approximately 1.3 million people (mostly Jews) were sent to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945. Over those years, 1.1 million of themmen, women and childrenlost their lives, making Auschwitz the site of the largest mass murder in human history. Among the dead were 960,000 Jews, 74,000 non-Jewish Poles, 21,000 Roma, 15,000 Soviet prisoners and about 15,000 people of other nationalities.The Days of Liberation | Holocaust Education | USHMMWatch on In August 1944, more than 135,000 prisoners had been spread across the Auschwitz complex. But when the Red Army arrived in early 1945, the majority of these prisoners were gonerushed out of the camps on death marches designed in part to prevent large numbers of prisoners from being rescued by the Allies.During the death marches, nearly 60,000 Auschwitz prisoners walked toward train stations in either Gliwice (a 30-mile distance) or Wodzislaw (a 35-mile distance). From there, they were transported to other camps. Facing freezing temperatures, starvation and threats from the armed guards who accompanied them on the march, as many as 15,000 prisoners died en route. Another 7,000, the majority seriously ill, were left behind in the Auschwitz, Birkenau and Monowitz camps.Once they arrived at Auschwitz, the Red Army and the Polish Red Cross worked to provide food and medical care to the emaciated survivors. Upon seeing Auschwitz, Soviet General Vasily Petrenko, commander of the 107th Infantry Division, reportedly remarked, I, who saw people dying every day, was shocked by the Nazis indescribable hatred toward the inmates who had turned into living skeletons. Child survivors of Auschwitz Public domain via Wikimedia CommonsBy June 1945, about 300 survivors who were still too weak to be moved remained at the camp. Auschwitz continued to be used as a prison for the rest of the war, holding Poles who had declared ethnic German status and German prisoners of war who performed forced labor at the camp. World War II officially came to an end on September 2, 1945.Over the following decades, Auschwitz survivors such as Primo Levi, Viktor Frankl and Elie Wiesel wrote about their experiences within the camp.In 1947, prompted by the stewardship of former prisoners who wanted the world to know about Nazi crimes at Auschwitz, Poland founded the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum on the site of Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau. It serves as a memorial to the 1.1 million people who died there.Sometimes instead of focusing on the end, we need to look at how it got there, Steven Luckert, senior program curator at the Levine Family Institute for Holocaust Education at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, told Smithsonian magazine in 2020. What was it that led Nazi Germany to create such a symbol of inhumanity, a place of infamy? In a matter of a few short years, it transformed a sleepy Silesian town into the greatest site of mass killing the world has ever known.The United Nations and the European Union have honored January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day since 2005.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Death, Holocaust, Judaism, Murder, Nazis, On This Day in History, Soviet History, World War II

The advancements in large language models (LLMs) have significantly enhanced natural language processing (NLP), enabling capabilities like contextual understanding, code generation, and reasoning. However, a key limitation persists: the restricted context window size. Most LLMs can only process a fixed amount of text, typically up to 128K tokens, which limits their ability to handle tasks requiring extensive context, such as analyzing lengthy documents or debugging large codebases. These constraints often necessitate workarounds like text chunking, increasing computational complexity. Overcoming these challenges requires models that can extend context lengths efficiently without compromising performance.Qwen AIs Latest ReleaseQwen AI has introduced two new models, Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct-1M and Qwen2.5-14B-Instruct-1M, designed to support context lengths of up to 1 million tokens. Developed by the Qwen team at Alibaba Group, these models also come with an open-sourced inference framework optimized for handling long contexts. This advancement enables developers and researchers to work with larger datasets in a single pass, offering a practical solution for applications that demand extended context processing. Additionally, the models feature improvements in sparse attention mechanisms and kernel optimization, resulting in faster processing times for extended inputs.Technical Details and BenefitsThe Qwen2.5-1M series retains a Transformer-based architecture, incorporating features like Grouped Query Attention (GQA), Rotary Positional Embeddings (RoPE), and RMSNorm for stability over long contexts. Training involved both natural and synthetic datasets, with tasks like Fill-in-the-Middle (FIM), paragraph reordering, and position-based retrieval enhancing the models ability to handle long-range dependencies. Sparse attention methods such as Dual Chunk Attention (DCA) allow for efficient inference by dividing sequences into manageable chunks. Progressive pre-training strategies, which gradually scale context lengths from 4K to 1M tokens, optimize efficiency while controlling computational demands. The models are fully compatible with vLLMs open-source inference framework, simplifying integration for developers.Results and InsightsBenchmark results demonstrate the capabilities of the Qwen2.5-1M models. In the Passkey Retrieval Test, the 7B and 14B variants successfully retrieved hidden information from 1 million tokens, showcasing their effectiveness in long-context scenarios. In other benchmarks, including RULER and Needle in a Haystack (NIAH), the 14B model outperformed alternatives like GPT-4o-mini and Llama-3. Sparse attention techniques contributed to reduced inference times, achieving speedups of up to 6.7x on Nvidia H20 GPUs. These results highlight the models ability to combine efficiency with high performance, making them suitable for real-world applications requiring extensive context.ConclusionThe Qwen2.5-1M series addresses critical limitations in NLP by significantly extending context lengths while maintaining efficiency and accessibility. By overcoming constraints that have long hindered LLMs, these models open new possibilities for applications ranging from analyzing large datasets to processing entire code repositories. With innovations in sparse attention, kernel optimization, and long-context pre-training, Qwen2.5-1M offers a practical and effective tool for tackling complex, context-heavy tasks.Check out the Paper, Models on Hugging Face and Technical Details. All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also,dont forget to follow us onTwitter and join ourTelegram Channel andLinkedIn Group. Dont Forget to join our70k+ ML SubReddit. Asif RazzaqAsif Razzaq is the CEO of Marktechpost Media Inc.. As a visionary entrepreneur and engineer, Asif is committed to harnessing the potential of Artificial Intelligence for social good. His most recent endeavor is the launch of an Artificial Intelligence Media Platform, Marktechpost, which stands out for its in-depth coverage of machine learning and deep learning news that is both technically sound and easily understandable by a wide audience. The platform boasts of over 2 million monthly views, illustrating its popularity among audiences. Meet 'Height':The only autonomous project management tool (Sponsored)

Fans of Rebecca Yarross Empyrean Saga are devouring the newest book, Onyx Storm, which released on Jan 21. This installment continues the romantasy drama of Violet Sorrengail, a former scholar aspirant forced into becoming a dragon rider by her mother, a general in Navarres military. In the first book, Violet realizes that much of what shes been told about Navarres history and the threat lurking beyond its border, is untrue. The rebels shes been raised to hate are actually the people who were trying to fight a dangerous enemy to save their nation. One of the children of the rebel faction, Xaden Riorson, is also a dragon rider, and its through her enemies-to-lovers romance with him, and help from the dragons she has bonded with, that she begins to understand the stakes.The series, which hit the top of the bestseller lists when it launched with Fourth Wing in 2023, is expected to continue the trend in huge sales, with some in publishing pinning their hopes on Onyx Storm as the bestselling book of the year.Its no surprise that a series with such an avid fandom would be optioned for television, but while Amazon Studios optioned the book in late 2023, theres little information about what that television adaptation will look like. That means theres still a chance that Amazon Studios will make good on the opportunity to make Fourth Wing the adaptation it deserves to be: an adult animated series.Costly CGI Dragons and Inner MonologuesWhile some fans are sure to crave a live-action adaptation of the series, there are huge hurdles to truly bringing Fourth Wing to life. The biggest hurdle is, of course, the dragons. Game of Thrones is known to have limited the amount of screen time its dragons had due to the sheer expense of creating convincing dragons with CGI. The original series began with a cost of about $5 to $6 million per episode; with the increased presence of dragons in the sequel series, House of the Dragon costs $20 million per episode. While House of the Dragon is a success on HBO (though it isnt quite as highly rated as its predecessor), its an established world with an already built-in television fandom, established over Game of Thrones eight seasons. HBO can afford to spend $200 million on a single season. Would Fourth Wing be able to establish itself with the same size audience fast enough to justify that type of expense?The relationships of the riders and their dragons are focal to the series. While there are many scenes that dont feature them, their presence is vital in exploring both Violets dangerous training and her growing understanding of the world shes trying to save. Violet bonds with two dragons, both of whom she communicates with telepathically. Speaking mind-to-mind works well on the page, but how would those lines be delivered in a live-action setting? Would they be voiceovers, without the actors moving their lips?Beyond that, there are other elements in Fourth Wing that may just not translate well to live-action. The series leans heavily on protagonist Violets inner monologues to explain the world to readers. In one early scene in the first novel, she actually recites history to herself to keep her focus as she crosses a dangerous bridge into the dragon riding academy. That type of tell-not-show storytelling may have gotten a pass in the novel, especially as Yarros leaned into that quirky character trait of Violets scholarship as a coping mechanism, but in live-action, such delivery would be more likely to seem cheesy.Violet also has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a condition that makes her joints super flexible and prone to injury. That chronic pain is brought vividly to life in the novel as readers experience her inner thoughts. Amazons adaptation will need to pay close attention to providing the right representation while showing this core part of Violets character.Streaming Hasnt Figured Out Epic Fantasy YetRecently, famous fantasy novelist Brandon Sanderson talked about why he hadnt optioned the rights to his fantasy novels for screen adaptation. Streaming has a big problem with epic fantasy, and this has me worried, he said. Rings of Power and Wheel of Time have not gone as well as I wouldve hoped. Shadow and Bone lasted only two seasons, after a very strong first season. Streaming hasnt figured out epic fantasy yet.Sanderson does point out, however, one excellent fantasy show: Arcane. This League of Legends television series is certified 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and those ratings prove that theres an appetite for truly well-made animated series for mature viewers. While Arcane is the most expensive animated TV show ever made, it still comes in well under House of the Dragons budget, with higher audience and critic ratings.But say that budget still isnt in the picture? Other animated fantasy series aimed at adults have been hugely popular in the last few years. The Legend of Vox Machina broke Kickstarter records for an animated special before it was picked up by Amazon Prime Video, and it was renewed for a fourth season in 2024 (beating out Shadow and Bone for longevity). While The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim came out to mixed reception, the criticism was more due to its inability to stand on its own as a film, not its gorgeous animation.When looking at the reception of Netflixs Avatar: The Last Airbenders live action adaptation of its excellent cartoon, its clear that most viewers prefer the original series. (The panned live-action films also showed that the characters had more life when animated than in live-action.) Reviews of Disneys live-action adaptations of their cartoon movies have likewise been mixedwhich shows that animation has a value beyond what live-action can offer. And elements like the telepathy between dragons and their ridersas well as the dragons themselveshave a shot at coming off more naturally in an animated series.Join our mailing listGet the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!So while readers finish Onyx Storm and eagerly await books four and five of the saga, Amazon needs to put some thought into why animationand not live-actionis the best vehicle to tell Violet and Xadens romance. Its the adaptation fans deserve.

Jan 27, 2025Ravie LakshmananCyber Espionage / Threat IntelligenceA previously unknown threat actor has been observed copying the tradecraft associated with the Kremlin-aligned Gamaredon hacking group in its cyber attacks targeting Russian-speaking entities.The campaign has been attributed to a threat cluster dubbed GamaCopy, which is assessed to share overlaps with another hacking group named Core Werewolf, also tracked as Awaken Likho and PseudoGamaredon.According to the Knownsec 404 Advanced Threat Intelligence team, the attacks leverage content related to military facilities as lures to drop UltraVNC, allowing threat actors to remotely access the compromised hosts."The TTP (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures) of this organization imitates that of the Gamaredon organization which conducts attacks against Ukraine," the company said in a report published last week.The disclosure arrives nearly four months after Kaspersky revealed that Russian government agencies and industrial entities have been the target of Core Werewolf, with the spear-phishing attacks paving the way for the MeshCentral platform instead of UltraVNC.The starting point of the attack chain mirrors the one detailed by the Russian cybersecurity company wherein a self-extracting (SFX) archive file created using 7-Zip acts as a conduit to drop next-stage payloads. This includes a batch script that's responsible for delivering UltraVNC, while also displaying a decoy PDF document.The UltraVNC executable is given the name "OneDrivers.exe" in a likely effort to evade detection by passing it off as a binary associated with Microsoft OneDrive.Knownsec 404 said the activity shares several similarities with Core Werewolf campaigns, including using 7z-SFX files to install and execute UltraVNC, port 443 to connect to the server, and the use of the EnableDelayedExpansion command."Since its exposure, this organization has frequently mimicked the TTPs used by the Gararedon organization and cleverly used open-source tools as a shield to achieve its own goals while confusing the public," the company said.GamaCopy is one of the many threat actors that have targeted Russian organizations in the wake of the Russo-Ukrainian war, such as Sticky Werewolf (aka PhaseShifters), Venture Wolf, and Paper Werewolf."Groups like PhaseShifters, PseudoGamaredon, and Fluffy Wolf stand out for their relentless phishing campaigns aimed at data theft," Positive Technologies' Irina Zinovkina said.Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.SHARE

We are looking for a Digital PR Executive to join our young digital PR function within SEO Sherpa, a multi-award-winning, global top-five organic search agency.In this role, you will be working in our digital PR division tasked with winning coverage and links for exciting brands like Harpers Bazaar, Orange, Abu Dhabi Government, Yas Island, and many others.As a Digital PR Executive, you'll be charged with driving strategy and execution, creating engaging and newsworthy press releases, stories, and content, and building relationships with influencers, bloggers, journalists, and industry leaders to secure digital coverage.We are looking for someone who has been there and done it, from creating and managing campaigns to working directly with clients, journalists, and designers to producing award-winning campaigns that journalists want to publish. From campaign ideation to content and outreach, you've done it all - and got the tee shirt.In this role, youll also help to grow our digital PR offering, working with the company's strategists and pitch team to promote the Digital PR service to our existing client set and new business opportunities.This is a full-time remote role. However it requires a high level of collaboration with other team members and with clients. For that purpose, only applicants in timezones of 4 hours +/- of Dubai (GST) will be considered.Requirements:A proven track record in Digital PR and fun going attitude are a must.If you answer YES to these, this role will be a good match:You have experience in Digital PR, or youve worked in the media before as a Journalist or Editor. Knowledge of the United Arab Emirates market is "nice" to have - but not a must.You know the media landscape like the back of your hand, and you have built relationships with journalists in multiple industries and markets. You already have, or are growing, a black book of media and influencer relationships.You have the copywriting skills to write stories journalists want to cover to land press coverage and links on well-known websites. You are an expert in writing click-worthy subject lines that get opened - and ultimately covered.You know whats trending news. Not a day goes by that you havent checked the latest stories in the market. Youre a master at spotting trends early - and inserting your clients into the conversation.You're a data whiz. You disseminate data and turn it into insights that journalists love. You have proven success in developing data studies that have won national coverage.You know - or are excited to learn and apply SEO strategies that leverage press coverage into backlinks - and ultimately higher search engine rankings for our clients.You have excellent organizational skills and can manage competing deadlines.You have exceptionally high standards. You are constantly raising the bar because, in your world, great isnt good enough.Benefits:Cool stuff you'll get:The opportunity to work with a talented team on an important mission.Above market salary + incentives.Unlimited (paid) personal time off for vacation, sick, and wellness days.Flexible hours and the freedom to work remotely (from anywhere!)Radical transparency across business metrics and information (we call this "open for business").100% company-paid health insurance.Regular training, professional workshops, and book purchases are covered by us.Team retreats and meet-ups that bring together our remote-first workforce.A fun work culture where we value your work and our client's business.

WHO ARE WE, AND WHY ARE WE HIRING?We're based on over 15 years of success, producing world-class video content and building, developing, and managing a number of high-traffic websites. Our success is down to Kodify's distinct teamwork, where each and every one of us plays a key role in getting us one step closer to our goals. Our award-winning content and websites are created exclusively by us and directly for the use of millions of users worldwide.At Kodify, we love tech and are always thinking about whats next! R&D and optimizations are part of our spirit. We work hard on consistently maintaining the highest level of professionalism. The video streaming industry has been growing a lot since last year and as a result, we need to expand our team to release the great ideas weve in mind.WHAT WILL YOU DO?Youll help to evolve a platform that supports close to 100M unique visitors a month.Create, maintain and evolve Server and Client-side applicationsResponsibility for technical design, development and testing.Collaborate with Product Owners, Designers and domain experts to ensure they understand possibilities/limitationsPerformance - Always work towards minimizing API response times, with the best tools available to ensure youve full visibility: Metrics, Distributed Tracing, and Aggregated Trace Metrics.Duties - Becoming a valued team member, providing feedback about tech, development lifecycle and processes. Take ownership of your code / task / role.Goal - Be proud of what you achieve, and of the product, and be one of the driving forces behind always making it better.WHERE AND WHEN:From wherever you want, the position is fully remote in the EU.Were very flexible about when you get your work done, but we do have some core hours where we like to overlap in order to promote collaboration and low-latency communication between team members (10:00 to 15:00 CET).* Our daily virtual stand-ups are important for us but other than that, youre free to manage your own time.WHAT WE OFFER:Fully remote position or, if preferred, working in our awesome Barcelona office!Agile environmentTop-notch tech stack!Upskill Fridays! Developers take time on Fridays to improve your skills, learn and research new trends that will allow us to level up our stack and processesFlexible working hours + core hours!10% on top of your salary for learning and development - of your choice!Latest tech equipmentCompany Amazon book account!Kodify off-sites, on-sites, events, and team activities!Amazing international team!1 day off on your birthdayGenerous vacation and personal days1 month paid sabbatical after 3 yearsExtended parental leaveHealth & Wellness budgetMobile phone reimbursementJOB REQUIREMENTSMinimum of 4 years of full-stack development experienceExpert in the React and Node.js ecosystemsSolid experience of NoSQL databasesExperience with DockerHigh level of skills with browser APIs, DOM and HTML/CSSExperience with JavaScript and TypeScriptA team player who likes to help others and solve problems togetherOwnership of solutionsMentoringInvestigation of new technologiesAdvocate of clean code and clean architecturePassionate about testingYou have a real Can Do work ethic - We are results-based, not clock-based!You love to have fun while you work!NICE TO HAVE:MongoDB * Redis * Express * Fastify * GraphQL * RabbitMQ * Docker * AWS * Next.js * Redux * Styled Components * Distributed SystemsMicroservices architecture * Domain Driven Design *Experience in High traffic websites *Understanding of Agile principles * Experience with Git and JIRAExperience working remotely * We value open source projects

The project will see an existing 1930s bungalow in Chingford demolished and replaced with three two-storey mews houses forming a single terrace.The existing L-shaped bungalow on the site, a 620m irregular quadrangle-shaped plot at the end of a row of terraces, is an anomaly in the area in terms of overall bulk and architectural style, according to a planning officers report.In contrast, Harp & Harps 354m scheme, taking hints from the surrounding 1920s two-storey terraced properties, integrates irregular gable roofs, bay windows and triangular oriel windows.AdvertisementThe new three-bedroomed houses will feature a palette of light-red bricks common to the area, alongside contrasting black brick plinths and white brick panels to break up the massing.Adapted to the sites sloping topography, the homes will be accessed via a mews path and each unit will have a separate entrance and rear garden including patio space and soft landscaping. Source:Fakd ImagesApproved: Harp & Harps Sunnyside housing scheme in ChingfordThe Harp & Harp scheme was unanimously approved by Waltham Forests planning committee in December.The planning application received 40 objections, alleging overdevelopment, concerns about overlooking and privacy, and complaints that the scheme was out of character with the area and would increase parking stress and traffic.However, Waltham Forest planning officers described the proposal as being of a high quality [which] adequately responds to the urban form of the streetscape, positively responding to the area character, which had been carefully designed to minimise the impact of overlooking and [to protect] privacy.AdvertisementRecommending the scheme for approval, officers concluded: The proposal would provide a well-designed, high-quality residential development which would achieve satisfactory standard of accommodation for future occupants and would not have an adverse impact on neighbouring amenity or highway safety.Harp & Harp said it was delighted with the approval, after working extensively with both our client and Waltham Forest planners in a collaborative fashion over the last year on the project.Steven Harp, who co-founded the south London design studio with partner Kayleigh Harp in 2015, added: We look forward to taking the scheme on site to not only deliver much-needed new family housing within London but to also demonstrate further how small sites in Londons outer boroughs can be intensified in a sensitive way to actively enhance their environment while helping to address the housing crisis. Source:Harp & HarpHarp & Harps Sunnyside housing scheme in Chingford. Proposed site planProject dataLocation ChingfordLocal authority Waltham ForestType of project ResidentialClient Edward James InvestmentsArchitect Harp & HarpLandscape architect Mark DonaldsonPlanning consultant N/AStructural engineer N/AM&E consultant N/AFunding PrivateTender date Spring 2025Start on site date Summer 2025Completion date TBCContract duration TBCGross internal floor area 354mForm of contract and/or procurement TBCAnnual CO2 emissions TBCTotal cost TBC

The 2012 London Olympic Games shone a light on the east London neighbourhood of Stratford and, in the afterglow of the sweeping regeneration of the area in the lead-up to the games, the surrounding neighbourhoods of Hackney Wick, Leyton and Bow too began to see development. The London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) was responsible not only for creating the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, but for transforming this site and its surrounding areas into a new piece of city: an inclusive community, a thriving business zone and a must-see destination where people will choose to live, work and play, as the LLDC describes it. One such area is Fish Island in Tower Hamlets to the west of the Olympic Park, where, at the time of the games, still stood the factories and sheds that characterised this industrial district. More recently, it has seen a spate of residential and mixed-use development, often at the expense of the artists and other creative practitioners who have been displaced from the havens they made out of these sites. Wick Lane, a mixed-use scheme by de Rijke Marsh Morgan Architects (dRMM), aims to address the heritage of the area, while providing a new model for living and working.Wick Lane is a Co-Location scheme as defined under the Mayor of Londons Good Growth by Design initiative for projects that combine industrial and residential spaces, thereby addressing both housing targets and the retention of the capitals industrial capacity. It is located on a site that has previously hosted a smattering of industrial uses: an MDF-cutting workshop, a studio for the artist Gavin Turk and a lot for car rental company Sixt, which partly owned the site with IDM Properties. The asset changed hands during the projects planning process but dRMM was retained as architect, eventually delivering the scheme for volume housebuilder Taylor Wimpey, which also acted as main contractor.AdvertisementdRMM s involvement with the location began in 2013 when it co-authored the LLDCs Design and Planning Guidance document for Hackney Wick and Fish Island. Through this it developed the framework for safeguarding the areas heritage assets and retaining its character, forming the bedrock of the development project the practice would undertake a few years later.Wick Lane sits just south of the Fish Island Conservation Area, with its Victorian brick buildings and chimney stacks. Further south is an area designated as Strategic Industrial Land (SIL) and the orientation of Wick Lane buildings therefore had to respond to this context everything fronting the main road to the south is for commercial and light industrial uses, acting as a buffer to noise from traffic and the adjacent SIL site. Wick Lane is bounded on the north by the Greenway, a foot and cycle path that runs alongside Bazalgettes northern outfall sewer between the Royal Docks to the east and Victoria Park to the west. The arrangement of the buildings is broken up to retain existing cycle routes through the site and to avoid an inconveniently located Thames Water sewer head. Any leftover space is given over to pocket gardens designed by Grant Associates, combined with landscaped podium levels that create elevated walkways and open courtyards.The project comprises 175 mixed-tenure homes, with 40 per cent either affordable rent or shared ownership, and provides 2,250m2 of light industrial, workplace and retail units. The masterplan retains something of a human scale, thanks to the six-storey height restriction for new developments set by the local plan, though not all of the buildings test this limit. We designed them in response to the kinds of spaces you already have in Fish Island, explains Wick Lane project architect Will Howard. Some of them are quite small and some of them are lofty people seem to like that character.Aesthetically, Wick Lane is a smrgsbord of the areas industrial history, with each building featuring one primary material applied extensively to all surfaces, a move which lends each its own character within the masterplan. One structure is faced with red brick, laid in varying courses, evoking 19th century Victorian mill buildings and jazzed up with red steel-framed windows and balconies.AdvertisementThere is a replica 1930s modernist factory in black brick, with matching black Crittall-style windows. The rest reference more contemporary industrial sheds with a turquoise standing seam exterior and cast glass and pale grey corrugated metal cladding.Key features are repeated to achieve some coherence across these distinct buildings: Machine Age-style sawtooth roofs are used extensively, pitched at the same angle across each application; window sizes are also consistent across multiple faces. External finishes have been painstakingly detailed, such that every joint and bond meets with precision around every corner, opening and snugly recessed rainwater downpipe.This display of industrial typologies might give the impression that the buildings have been designed from the outside in. However, a degree of care has been given to their spatial organisation and internal environments. Their forms are staggered and shifted to maximise daylight into the apartments, 72 per cent of which are dual-aspect, and balconies are arranged to avoid overshadowing neighbours. Rather than restricting the commercial uses to the ground floor and raising the living spaces above the so-called beds above sheds approach entrances and ground-floor amenity spaces are shared between residents and commercial tenants, while maintaining logical separations between facilities such as loading bays and bicycle parking. As Howard puts it: We addressed the conflict of having industrial and residential uses on the same site by blurring the boundaries between them.One user who enjoys these blurred boundaries is Jay, the proprietor of a rug-making studio whom I encountered on a cold winter morning, the whirr of his tufting gun mixed with smooth jazz spilling onto the street through the open roller shutters of his studio. Jay lives in Ealing but used to operate from a space close by on Fish Island. He watched the development as it went up and moved into his current space shortly after its completion. He was attracted to the amenities and facilities on offer, and to the flourishing of the sort of creative community he had originally sought out in Fish Island.Jays studio is one of the spaces let by Tradestars, the business enterprise that runs Wick Lanes industrial spaces. It provides the units and offers logistical support for a range of businesses including hair and nail salons, a tattoo studio, a screen printing studio and a bike maintenance workshop. Through these spaces, it hopes to retain the community feel and creative character of this rapidly changing east London neighbourhood.Co-location is a relatively new concept, though it has had a few years to percolate through the industry. According to research compiled by built environment consultancy Turley, the co-location schemes granted planning permission in London over the past five years could provide up to 22,500 new homes and 270,000m2 of industrial floor space.As more of these schemes get delivered, their viability in increasing housing supply and addressing local industrial land needs will become clearer. Wick Lane, in any case, sets a fine blueprint for the model.Derin Fadina is an architectural designer and writer. He teaches at Central Saint Martins and is a New Architecture Writers alumnus.Project dataStart on site July 2018CompletionDecember 2023Gross internal floor area17,241m2Construction costUndisclosedConstruction cost per m2UndisclosedArchitectdRMM ArchitectsClientTaylor Wimpey LondonPlanning authorityLondon Legacy Development CorporationPlanning structural engineerAECOMExecutive structural engineer Clarke Nicholls MarcelFire engineerAECOMPlanning MEPPinnacle ESPExecutive MEPVenables AssociatesPlanning landscape architectGrant AssociatesExecutive landscape architectJFA Environmental PlanningEnergy and sustainability consultantEnvironmental EconomicsHeritage consultantTibbaldsCost consultantMartin ArnoldCommunity engagementMeeting PlaceDaylight/sunlight consultantAnstey HorneWorkspace fitout Tradestars and Sophie Franks DesignMain contractor Taylor Wimpey LondonCAD software used REVITAnnual CO2 emissions20.7 kgCO2e/m2.yr (Partial estimate: electricity and gas, using conservative emissions factors and not over-valuing CHP electricity production)Sustainability dataPercentage of floor area with daylight factor >2%91% (living, kitchens and dining rooms), 70% (bedrooms)Percentage of floor area with daylight factor >5%21% (living, kitchens and dining rooms), 5% (bedrooms)On-site energy generation14.6% (0.8% PV panels, 13.8% electricity from CHP)Heating and hot water load60.5 kWh/m2/yr (estimate)Total energy load96.4 kWh/m2/yr (heat estimated, electricity measured through survey)Carbon emissions (all)20.7 kgCO2eq/m2/yr (electricity and gas, using conservative emissions factors and not over-valuing CHP electricity production)Annual mains water consumption41 m3/occupant/yr (metered, survey to residents)Airtightness at 50Pa3.6 m3/hr/m2 (measured, 87 units independently tested)Overall thermal bridging heat transfer coefficient (Y-value)0.12 W/m2KOverall area-weighted U-value0.48 W/m2K (Whole fabric, including windows, doors, etc)Embodied/whole-life carbonNot yet calculatedPredicted design life in years60 years (standard design assumption)

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth sets highest Steam peak for series' single-player gamesDirector says mods can "breathe life" into games.Image credit: Square Enix News by Ed Nightingale Deputy News Editor Published on Jan. 27, 2025 Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth has surpassed 40,000 concurrent players on Steam, setting the series' highest peak on the platform for a single-player game.The second part of the remake trilogy was released last week, 23rd January, and over the weekend it set a peak concurrent player count of 40,564 (via SteamDB).For comparison, Final Fantasy 7 Remake (the first part) set a concurrent peak of 13,803, while Final Fantasy 16 (released last year) reached 27,508.Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth PC Launch TrailerWatch on YouTubeThe series' highest peak overall remains Final Fantasy 14, which boasted 95,150 concurrent players after its popular Endwalker expansion was released.This peak for Rebirth is positive news, considering Square Enix previously admitted sales of the PS5 version "did not meet expectations", leading to the company's multiplatform strategy.Previously, PC versions of Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Final Fantasy 16 were somewhat criticised for their performance, though Rebirth has been praised by comparison. It's also Steam Deck verified.Of course, a PC release allows for fan-made mods. Director Naoki Hamaguchi asked players not to install "offensive or inappropriate" mods in a previous interview.In a new interview with Automaton, he admitted to using mods himself as a PC player and acknowledged how they can "breathe life" into games.Referring to the previous interview, he said: "I wasn't trying to tell people not to use mods. It was more about being mindful. Both creators and users alike should ensure mods dont detract from the intended game experience.""I respect the modding community," he continued. "Mods have played a significant role in the rise of the PC market. Look at series like Fallout or The Elder Scrolls even years after release, new mods breathe life into these games, making players want to come back to them."As for the final game in the trilogy, series producer Yoshinori Kitase confirmed the story - written by creative director Tetsuya Nomura - has been completed and he's "very satisfied with it".The PC version of Rebirth includes an option to speed up cutscenes, which the developers would like to add back to the PS5 version, within the limits of the console's capabilities.